Left for Last
by paganpunk2
Summary: A dinner discussion inspires River to ponder symmetry.


A quick little one-shot inspired in the midst of writing a different story. Reviews are wunderbar, darlings. Enjoy!

"Captain, I really would prefer to inoculate everyone before we land," Simon pestered as he tagged along behind Mal. "They'll only be out of service for a couple of days, and-"

"A couple of days?" Mal repeated, stopping and turning to face the doctor as he crossed his arms. Simon, finding himself confronted with the tight set mouth and narrowed eyes that meant the other man had already made his decision, sighed heavily.

"Yes. Just two days, and they'll feel perfectly fine again. _And_ they'll be protected from-"

"We land in thirty hours. If you poke them now, are they gonna be ready to fight when he hit dirt?"

"Well...no. I mean, probably not."

"Then I reckon you can see my problem." With that, the captain swiveled on his heel and continued his trek towards the dining room, where he'd been told dinner was waiting. "Why'd you leave them for last, anyway?" he called back over his shoulder.

"It wasn't purposeful," the surgeon said defensively as he kept pace. "If you'd just let me give it to everyone at once while we were still en route-"

"If I'd have let you do that, we'd have all been down at once, and with our luck we'd have run into Reavers or some other god-awful inconvenience right around the time we were all too busy bein' sick on one another to notice."

"Yes, but at least we wouldn't be having this issue," Simon countered. "As it is, you're fixing to take two unprotected people into a nest of infection, and from what I've read Gervais disease sounds much more miserable in full form than it's inoculation reaction suggests it would be."

"That's sayin' something, all right, because I can tell you from recent experience that the side effects of that shot are a far cry from fun," Mal commented as they took their seats at the table and began filling their plates, the rest of the crew immediately tuning in to their conversation. _I think I'd rather be shot than go through that particular bit of hell again, as a matter of fact, _he thought silently_. _His stomach muscles still ached from retching, and he had been the second person on the ship to get pumped full of what Simon swore would be a tonic for their immune systems. "Still doesn't answer my question of how you managed to leave Zoe and Jayne for last, though."

"You know I ain't one for needles, Mal," the mercenary growled from his place. "Reckon I'd rather just be sick and get over it than have the doc stick me, 'specially since the shot goes and makes ya feel bad anyway."

"Well, that explains one," the captain said, turning to his second in command. "How about you, Zoe? Any particular reason you're one of the last two needin' dosed up?"

"Well, it certainly isn't because she's afraid of being poked," Wash chimed in from his seat beside his wife, who merely rolled her eyes at him before shrugging.

"Just fell that way, sir. No reason behind it that I'm aware of."

"I'm telling you, taking them outside of this ship without inoculations is practically murder," Simon warned.

Everyone appeared flustered at that. "Hold up," Jayne interjected as Mal opened his mouth to speak. "Doc, you sayin' this little bug they got could kill a person? Cause I'll take a needle over dead any day," he added, the look on his face suggesting that he would gladly stretch his arm across the table then and there if Simon happened to have a dose of the vaccine handy.

"It's not lethal under normal circumstances, no. So long as there is someone around who is willing to attend to basically every need of the patient, there's no reason it can't be survived without permanent damage. It's just a week of non-stop vomiting, high fever, delusion, and occasionally violent episodes that _somebody_ has to clean up after. I would point out at this juncture that while I am more than happy to provide my services as a physician, nowhere in my Hippocratic Oath is there anything written about mopping up the after effects of someone foolish enough to go out into Gervais-infected territory without an inoculation." He shot Mal a pointed look. "I'll keep them alive, captain, but you'd better believe I'm not going to be the one changing the sheets if you drag them out there tomorrow."

Mal frowned. "I ain't making this decision now," he declared after a moment of silence around the table. "We've still got some time before we touch down, no reason I can't think on it some."

"At least you don't have to worry about dying if you do go out and catch this thing, lamby-toes," Wash purred at Zoe. "You know I'll take care of you."

"Yes, dear, I'm well aware that you look for any excuse to wear that nurse's uniform of yours," she shot back, a playful grin on her lips. When Jayne snickered at her comment, the pilot turned his banter around and focused on a new target.

"You'd better make sure _you _don't get sick, though, Jayne," he commented lightly as he tucked a bite of food in his mouth.

"What're you talkin' about, little man?" came the reply.

"Well," the blonde continued, chewing and swallowing as slowly as he could to draw out the big man's annoyance, "who'd volunteer to clean up after you?" he finished jokingly, delightedly noting the mercenary's scowl as the others burst out laughing.

"Reckon I can pick up after myself," he muttered, gripping his fork until his knuckles whitened. "Don't need no gorram nursemaid."

"You'll be singing a different tune if you catch Gervais disease," Simon threw in, his shoulders still shaking with mirth.

"I don't care how pretty you sing, Jayne, I ain't changing your sheets," Mal added, drawing another round of guffaws from most of the crew.

"Aw, c'mon," Kaylee cajoled in between giggles. "Don't worry, I'll take good care of ya if you get sick," she tried to comfort the man across from her, but her voice came out distracted as the doctor leaned against her, weak with amusement. "Really," she attempted again, trailing off as she caught a whiff of Simon's shampoo. _Oh, I botched that,_ she realized even as she sniffed as inconspicuously as she could, still flustered over how close her crush was. Vaguely noticing that her friend looked a little hurt by the comments still being thrown about the room, she resolved to make sure to be extra sweet to him if he really _did_ become ill anytime soon. _No matter how mean and grumpy he is the whole time,_ she vowed before dedicating herself fully to the hint of cologne her nose thought it sensed.

Once the moment had passed, the rest of the meal went by quickly. After the table was clear, people lingered, as content to sit around talking as they were to pursue their own amusements elsewhere on the ship. As the evening waned the group gradually shrank, eventually leaving only Mal, Zoe, Simon, and a morose-looking Jayne.

"Have you come to a decision yet, captain?" Simon inquired finally. "Surely there's some way to delay the delivery a couple of days."

"Can't do that. Pay's double if we get it all unloaded by day after tomorrow." _Huh. Normally the mention of cash would at least get his attention,_ he thought, watching his mercenary from the corner of his eye. _He's acting like he took all that ribbing earlier for serious. Surely he knows better than that by now._ If he did know better, though, he certainly wasn't showing it.

"What about...can you leave one of them here? If I inoculate Zoe tonight, you would still have Jayne with you for the delivery. You said yourself that the load wasn't especially heavy, so couldn't the two of you offload it? Then when the job is complete I could give Jayne his shot, and by the time he began to feel the side effects Zoe would be nearly back to normal."

"Provided I ain't caught the real thing in the mean time," Jayne grumbled, glaring at the knife he was drawing back and forth over a whetstone.

"You're hardly likely to contract it from a brief encounter with the buyers," Simon told him emphatically. "So long as you don't have any close personal contact with anyone, you probably won't catch it." He stressed the 'close personal contact' bit, hoping to convey that visiting the local ladies of the evening would be a less than intelligent move.

"Then how come you've been doggin' my every footstep, trying to convince me it's such a terrible idea to take them with me when you haven't dosed them?" Mal demanded, perturbed by the sudden change in the doctor's story.

"Because it is a terrible idea," he insisted. "Even with low odds of either one of them getting sick, if one of them does the two days they would have been down from the inoculation will seem like nothing compared to how long it will take them to get well after the full-blown disease. The symptoms only manifest themselves for about a week, but they're so brutal that it can take a full month or more for the victim to really feel well again. If you take them out there without protection you're running the risk of one or both of them operating at less than par for at least five weeks. If you work them during recovery, it will take even longer. Listen, captain, as a physician I strongly advise you to at least let me inoculate one of them. At least then we're guaranteed to be at two-thirds strength, during the job and after it."

_I have to admit, what he's saying makes sense. Still..._ Going over the details of the job in his head, Mal knew he simply couldn't take the good advice he was being given, no matter how much he wanted to. "Sorry, Simon," he said finally. "I can't leave either one of them behind."

"Captain-"

"Don't be a boob," River ordered her brother as she came back into the room. "He can't conduct the orchestra with only one hand."

Thrown off by his sister's reappearance, the doctor spluttered. "I thought you went to bed, _meimei,_" he managed finally.

"Contemplating symmetry is much more engaging than counting sheep."

"Symmetry?" Simon puzzled. "Maybe I ought to give you some-"

The girl sighed loudly, purposefully interrupting him with the noise. "Zoe is the right hand," she explained, giving her brother a look that made it clear she thought he was being incredibly slow in the head. "So familiar that there is no need to think about what it does, because it is always doing exactly what it's supposed to. The dominant hand, the one that has a better reputation. Leaving the right hand behind would be like taking a knife to a gun fight."

"He doesn't have to take Jayne with him!" Simon nearly exploded. "Take Zoe, if you want, and leave Jayne here to be dosed. I'm just arguing that you should let one of them be inoculated tonight so that we don't end up with two bedridden people on this ship at the same time."

Mal opened his mouth to reply, but River snatched the words from the tip of his tongue. "He _can't _leave Jayne behind," she said irritably, obviously annoyed with her sibling. "He's the left hand. The one nobody pays any attention to unless they need it. It picks the businessman's pocket while the right hand closes the deal with a shake. It doesn't make characters nearly as pretty as the right hand does, but it leaves it's mark in other ways." She grinned broadly down the table at where Jayne sat, watching her, his eyebrows raised questioningly. "Leaving the left hand at home would be like taking a knife to a gunfight and forgetting to plant explosives behind the bar first," she finished triumphantly. Seeing that she had managed to flabbergast Simon, her grin widened, and she stood up and extended her hand to him. "Now I am finished contemplating symmetry," she announced. "It is bedtime."

Sighing, the doctor also rose from his chair and prepared to follow the girl down the hall. "I hope you'll reconsider, captain," he called from the doorway before he was yanked insistently out of the room. A moment later, River's head popped back in.

"There will be a test of today's lesson next week," she informed them gravely, looking straight at Mal. "Make sure you study the importance of symmetry very, very hard." Then she was gone, skipping away as if every single word she had just uttered made perfect sense.

"I ain't changing my mind on this," the captain informed the other two as he, too, made to leave the table. "You're both going on this job. Any complaints," he directed toward Jayne, "can be addressed to your pillow tonight after you go to bed."

"I ain't said a word, Mal," the mercenary said rather quietly, still drawing his knife across the stone. "Just thinkin' about what Crazy said, that's all."

"Can't understand half of what she says most of the time," Zoe mused.

"Pretty clear tonight," Jayne answered without looking up. "Mal's the head, you an' me are the arms. Head without arms can think a lot, but it can't really do much. A one armed man can rob a bank, but can't carry away much loot. Two armed man can rob a bank, grab as much loot as the fella with one arm_, and _shoot back at the folks whose money he's just took so he's got a better chance of keeping it. If the arms have got a good enough head, there ain't no need for shootin', and they can carry away twice as much as that guy who ain't all, whatchacallit. Symmetrical." He looked up to find the other two staring at him in mild shock. "What, ain't that what she just said?" he asked, thinking he'd misunderstood and made a fool of himself. _Wouldn't be the first time, neither._

Shaking his head, Mal just chuckled a little at the enigma that was Jayne Cobb. _Just when I think I've got him pegged, he goes and says something like that. When did he start taking lessons in Albatross?_ "G'night, Zoe," he bid his second in command. Turning to the man who was still holding a knife in one hand and a mild grudge over the dinner conversation in the eyes, he found himself sorely tempted and less and less able to resist the urge with every moment that passed. "G'night, Leftie," he said finally, leaving before any response could be made.

"What in the gorram hell did he call me?" Jayne queried after the captain had vanished.

"Sounded to me like you just got a new nickname," Zoe answered, grinning. "Leftie. Kind of suits you, you know."

"Insults just don't end tonight, do they?" he muttered irritably, causing a frown to crease the woman's lips.

"He don't give nicknames to just anyone, you know."

"He's got a nickname for everyone else on this ruttin' ship, Zoe."

"Not that he made up," she argued firmly. "Just means he sees the truth in what River said." When the mercenary just grunted something incoherent, she sighed, getting to her feet with a yawn. "You know," she added gently, "there's a difference between being tripped over and being kicked at. Just because everyone before has kicked ya doesn't mean everyone after's going to do the same thing."

Watching her retreating back, Jayne sighed in resignation. As much as he hated to admit it, he had rather liked the way River had described him_. Mal's had some little name for everybody else for as long as I can remember, but he ain't never given me one. Not til now, at least. _"Hey Zoe?"

"Yeah?" she asked, turning back.

"...Ain't the left hand supposed to be the troublemaker?"

"Now you're getting it," she cheered. "Told you it was a good nickname."

"Just don't go chopping me off if I offend ya," he joked.

"Person'd have to be crazy to cut off their own hand just cause they caught it in the cookie jar from time to time," she said with a wink. "G'night, Jayne."

"G'night, Zoe." _Think I can deal with bein' the left hand. Yeah. Reckon I can handle __that just fine._ He waved the knife back and forth, relishing the way it's perfectly honed edge reflected the light to all corners of the room. _Ma always did say that 'troublemaker' shoulda been my middle name..._


End file.
